


And I Will Love You, Baby, Always

by QueenOfNewOrleans22



Category: Bon Jovi (Band)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:48:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28613865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfNewOrleans22/pseuds/QueenOfNewOrleans22
Summary: Tico and David have a night together.In the morning, Tico has a certain crisis, and David worries that he's the cause.
Relationships: David Bryan/Tico Torres
Comments: 6
Kudos: 8





	1. Beginings (Ends)

The whiskey burned its way down Tico's throat as he downed another mouthful, shivering in the cold bar despite his heavy jacket. It could've only been a mere chill, but in the dark spaces of his mind, Tico figured that it was oddly accurate for how the last few weeks had been going for him. 

Tico loved playing drums, and he loved playing it with this band, but he didn't love the arguing, and he didn't love the emotions when they ran high. When they were all constantly running off of coffee and pure adrenaline, tempers burst fast, and there wasn't even any privacy to argue, or to do much of anything, really, when everybody was living in the same small space that was always taking them from one place to the next. 

It hadn't even been one specific incident that'd set Tico off, it'd been the whole situation as a whole. He couldn't count the number of timed that he'd left the bus and just wandered away to get a few moments peace. Tico was exhausted, and his shoulders ached with every pull as he downed another glass. 

If given the chance, Tico didn't want to wake up the next morning for quite awhile, and yearned for the chance to just sleep and not have any obligations. Thankfully for everybody involved, the only thing they had to do the next day was go to some interview, and that wasn't until midday. Tico was glad, because if he had to be waken up at the crack of dawn again, he might've just killed himself or somebody else, because he would've gone fucking crazy. 

Truth be told, Tico was glad he was alone, if only for a few minutes - he loved rhe guys, he really did, but they drove him up a goddamn wall. Richie and Jon were playing pool with Doc, and Alec had found some girl with a curvy body who nad been smiling flirtatiously at him for half an hour before he'd gotten the guts, which was unlike him. 

"Hey, man." David said abruptly, dropping into the chair beside Tico's without warning. He was smiling, but that was his usual self, so Tico only grunted and looked at him through his peripheral vision. "Alec told me to go do somethin' else besides bother him."

Tico tilted his glass, and watched as the amber liquid swished around in the clear confines of his glass. "So you decide to come bother me?" He said, perhaps a little too harshly, but then he had that burning sensation again and the bartender was rolling his eyes and coming back over to fill the glass back up. 

In all honesty, David didn't really bother him as much as he seemed to bother the other guys. Tico found in endearing, in a weird way. Endearing and sweet and fucking crazy, all wrapped into one. 

"Mhmm." David paused, and his smile slipped, like a cracked mask. "Don't mind me for being nosy, but is everything okay?" He was playing with his necklace, which caught in the faint light and shined like a star. 

"Define 'okay' for me, and I'll answer that for you." Tico went to grab his glass, but then he paused, fingers freezing on the cold glass. He thought about the words for a long minute, tossing them around in his head, debating on which ones fit, sort of like a puzzle. "How are you so goddamn happy all the time?" He asked. 

The smile slipped a little more, and then it settled into a thin line. "What do you mean?" David asked in a quiet voice, but he didn't sound confused, he just sounded uncomfortable. 

Shrugging, Tico sighed and took a smaller sip of his whiskey. "No matter whatever happens, you're always smiling, always trying to make people feel better about things even when they're telling you to shut up. How?" He fell silent for a moment. "And why?" He added. 

David gave a curious half-smile and looked down at his necklace. "I don't like worrying people." He eventually said after a long stretch of thought. "And I was the baby of the family, so I guess I just don't like being cared for because I got so much when I was a kid." 

"Ah " Tico breathed out. 

The alcohol was making Tico feel hazy, and his thoughts were getting muddled and the reason was disappearing from hid thought process. He wasn't quite drunk yet, but maybe that was for the best. He was, however, just inebriated enough for his reasoning to go out the window. 

Now that they were so close and not halfway across the stage from each other, it was interesting how much Tico could see of David's face, of the little spattering of freckles across his nose and the almost instinctive half-pout that his lips were forming, almost as if he hadn't noticed what his face was doing. 

If he'd been sober, Tico would've noticed how weird the feelings in his chest were, and addressed them accordingly. He had felt them before, and didnt like being around the other guys when the feelings increased. But he felt warm all over and it was easy to see why David got all those girls, really. 

"I see when you look at me." Tico said without thinking, the words coming into their doomed existence without being prompted. He paused, and then just decided to dive right in. "You don't think I can, but I do." 

David's hand slipped when he reached out to take the offered glass from the bartender, and it fell to the bar, the glass breaking into what seemed like a million shards of tiny translucent knives. David flinched as the wood darkened from the liquid kept within the glass. "Oh, I'm sorry." He said sincerely to the bartender, who scowled as he stormed across the few feet to begin cleaning up the mess. 

Before they ended up on the receiving end of the bartender's wrath, Tico grasped his friend by the arm and pulled him off the stool and out of the bar, weaving his way through the crowded building until they were out into the cool, dark night, listening as cars rumbled in the distance of the shadows. 

Within his grasp, David seemed to melt into Tico's natural warmth, but when the drummer turned his intense gaze unto him, David's pale face became flushed and he pulled away. "What were - what were you talking about?" He asked, stumbling over his words like a nervous teenager. 

Tico looked at him. "I know that you look at me, and I know _why_ you look at me." 

The air was so thick from tension that David could hardly breathe, and he made a nervous noise from deep in his throat. "No, you don't." He said hurriedly, his fingers curling into fists, feeling his nails bite into the palms of his hands. 

"Yes, I do." Tico looked deadly serious in the night, and he felt so, too. "And, believe it or not, I feel the same exact fuckin' way. Shocking, right?" A small smile twisted at his lips with the words in an almost sardonic sort of way, as if he knew how ridiculous they sounded. 

David stared at him, torn between agreement and fear. "Have you fucking gone crazy?" He asked in a high-pitched tone. 

"Maybe." Tico admitted, and he slowly stepped foward, savoring the shock that was practically seeping through the air as if feeding off of it. He reached up and pressed his hand against the side of David's neck, feeling his muscles work as he swallowed. "So, your room or mine?" 


	2. Regret (Comfort)

When Tico woke up, with the sun peaking through the windows and the remainder of sleep drifting away from his mind, it became increasingly clear that something was wrong, and not in the way that Tico was used to. 

First things first - Tico wasn't in his hotel room, and he hadn't gone with any of the groupies, either, because he would've been back on the bus if that would've been true. He was naked underneath the sheets, which felt cold to the touch when Tico grabbed a fist full of them and pulled them up so they didn't slip and expose him. 

The room was messy, with pants and scarves and gloves tossed on every available space. There was a pack of cigarettes on the bedside table, and a lighter that glinted when the sunlight hit it. To the immediate eye, Tico was alone in the room, listening to his own breathing as his heart hammered in his chest. 

At the edge of the bed, a jacket had been tossed. Tico reached over and grabbed it, feeling the rough, coarse material underneath his fingers. It was a patchwork jacket, the sort that looked like it would've been bought at a yard sale. It was too big to have belonged to Jon, and too small for Richie and Alec. 

Tico's heart seized as the implications of that thought became clear, but he forced himself to calm down, to breath, because there were way too many options to just jump at the first one that came to mind. He set the jacket down, and the looked around the room for more clues as to what had happened. 

There was a wallet sitting on the arm of the worn couch, and a pair of boots on the side of the bed. There was a switchblade knife that'd been tossed on the floor, bright silver against the beige carpet. 

And, near a corner, propped up on the unsteady floor ans looking as if it would fall at any given chance, was an electronic keyboard, and it didn't take a genius to figure out who would be sleeping in the same room with a goddamn keyboard. 

"Oh, shit." Tico breathed out, clutching the sheet within his hands, feeling his blunt nails digging into his exposed skin. "Holy fucking shit, I did not." He felt the denial slip away, though, because he was naked, and he was in a hotel room that did not belong to him. 

An eternity could've passed, and Tico would've been not the wiser as he sat there, feeling both panicked and numb. His heart was hammering against his chest and millions of thoughts were racing through his mind, angry and confused and sad. 

Even despite the keyboard, Tico prayed that it wasn't David's room, but he knew that there was nobody else that could've been staying in the room. His mind was filled to the brim with so many worried thoughts, terrible and cursing himself for whatever had happened that night. Tico knew that he hadn't even been that drunk, but couldn't figure out for the life of him why he would do such a thing. 

Suddenly, the door opened and then it shut again, and Tico only remembered that he was naked when David walked back into the room, carrying two cups of coffee and looking like he was swimming in his too-big shirt. 

"Hey." David said, plain and calm and simple, walking over and setting one of the mugs on the nightstand. "Do you have a headache? I have a headache. I drank too much last night." He sighed and walked over to his keyboard, sitting down on the chair that he'd set up in front of it. 

David took a sip of his coffee and then set it down on the ground, trading it for a notebook that'd been down there. He briefly flipped through the pages, and then he looked up. "Are you okay, Teek?" He asked. 

The question made Tico want to laugh, want to _scream_ at the pure incredulity and near hilarity of the situation. He was naked, and in David's bed. Tico didn't know what to think, because, last night, he had looked at one of his best friends and asked what bedroom he wanted to be in to - _do things!_

"No." Tico finally managed to say. "Jesus Christ, you and I - we - " He motioned vaguely to his chest. "We fucking had sex!" He clamped his mouth shut when he remembered that the walls were thin, and had nearly sent himself back into a panic because did that mean that whoever was in the room beside David's heard what was going on? 

"Hey, calm down." David closed the notebook again and then grabbed his mug, standing up from his chair and weaving out from in between the keyboard. "Just take a deep breath, calm down." 

"I can't fucking calm down." Tico looked around. "Where are my pants?!" 

David stared at the drummer for a moment, almost seeming to look deep inside of his mind, and then he looked down at the floor for a moment. He shuffled around, and then bent down, grabbed a pair of pants, and tossed them at Tico with a blank face. 

Hurriedly, Tico pulled his pants back down, telling himself that it wouldn't do any good to panic as he stood up and his feet hit his belt. He bent down and grabbed it, winding it around the loops with his thrumming heart and growing panic. 

"We had sex last night." Tico repeated, more to himself than David, who only stared at him with a strange gaze in his eyes. He turned around and pressed his hands onto the wall, resting against it and looking down at his feet. "You got together with Dave after the bar and went to his hotel room. You started out in the shower because David wanted to get the hair spray out of his hair. And then you ended up on the floor." He shivered. 

An eternity seemed to have passed in such a short span of time, but, in reality, it was only a few moments as Tico calmed himself down, and then he finally trusted himself to speak again. Or, at least, open his eyes when he hadn't even been aware that he'd closed them. "Okay." He whispered. 

David was standing near the bed, looking close to tears, or to just running out of the room to spare himself whatever might come next. His mouth twisted, and he looked at Tico through his tangled hair. 

"I'm sorry." Tico pressed his hand against his heart. "I'm sorry, Dave, but I'm not - I can't even begin to - I'm not gay." He felt strangely breathless, as if he'd run a thousand miles but just ended up right where he'd started. 

"Well." David said. "I'm glad that it took you a few drinks and getting in my pants to figure that out." 

"What?" Tico felt like he was getting whiplash, and he had no idea what to do because it felt like there were a million things going on and he wasn't being given enough time to figure it all out. "David - hey!" 

Before Tico could begin whatever placations that would come to mind, David grabbed his boots and sat down on the bed, beginning to pull them on with quick, clumsy motions. "I'm glad that we could do all of that only for you to say, 'I'm not gay.' Thanks for that, Tico." 

It was very unusual for David to be anything but his usually sweet self, and it came as a shock. Tico frowned, crossing his arms over his chest and only feeling his emotions mount higher. "David, hey. I think we're both very confused here." 

David was tying his boots. "I'm not - not confused." His breath hitched. 

"Yes, you are. I'm confused about my emotions, and you're confused by me being confused about my emotions. Dave, can you stop for a minute so we can talk?" 

"Do you regret sleeping with me?" David asked, his voice a mere whisper as he set both of his feet back down on the ground, avoiding eye contact like it'd kill him if initiated. 

"No." Tico sighed and sat down, feeling David tense when they brushed up against each other. "No, I don't regret it. I just don't know what to do, I don't know what to feel. It's not because of you." He wrapped his arm around David's shoulders, hoping to comfort him, even if just a little bit. 

Finally, David turned to look at Tico, fixing him with that strange blue-green gaze. 

David leaned into the touch, whether he'd admit it or not. "I don't want you to hate me." He whispered. "For whatever wrong I might've did." 

"No, you didn't do anything wrong." Tico shook his head. "I could _never_ hate you." 


End file.
